


greet another door that opens in

by mockturtletale



Category: 5 Seconds of Summer (Band)
Genre: First Time, Jealousy, Other, Polyamory, Sharing Clothes, Sharing a Bed, Touring, best friends better off as lovers
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-07-07
Updated: 2014-07-07
Packaged: 2018-02-07 21:56:10
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Underage
Chapters: 1
Words: 9,529
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1915275
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/mockturtletale/pseuds/mockturtletale
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The photographer directs Luke to stand between them, maybe to offset the pinching fight that’s broken out, or maybe for some value of aesthetic that Luke can’t see because he’s in the picture.</p>
            </blockquote>





	greet another door that opens in

**Author's Note:**

> I spent hours and hours this week trying to write all the things in other fandoms that I've started and have to finish, but it just seemed like a better idea to mainline a million hours of age old 5sos twitcams and listen to their album on repeat for days on end, instead. 
> 
> Then I had a whole day off work and seven hours of it became these ten thousand words! 
> 
> I blame Lex, a lot, because when I emailed her in the throes of all of this she encouraged me rather than telling me to look at my life and look at my choices. 
> 
> I remain perplexed by Karla's decision to make Calum her favourite, based purely on this fic, but grovellingly encourage her to join me in making this awful band our next great downfall. The title is for her, and said downfall. 
> 
> THANKS FOR READING, IF YOU DO, I'M NEW AND I'M NERVOUS.
> 
> (r.e. the 'underage' warning: the timeline for this is relaxed to the max, based loosely somewhere in the last year of canon events, but it's nonetheless clearly safe to assume that at least one person involved here is not yet 18 at that time.)

They’ve been awake since 5am, up and out of bed and piled into the van by 5:11am, but it’s after midday when Calum snaps upright in his seat, rising from his sluglike slump into a posture-perfect picture of instant indignation. 

“Ey! That’s my shirt!”

Ashton just looks at him. Looks down at the shirt he’s wearing and then back at Calum again, expression exactly the same - completely uncaring. 

“It’s a baseball tee, Cal. Collectively, we own about five hundred thousand of them. You can’t possibly be trying to tell me that this one is yours and you know so for a fact.” 

Michael doesn’t even look up from his phone, clearly caught up in whoever he’s texting or whatever he’s tweeting, but Luke finds it in himself to lift his head off the back of the lounge. Calum doesn’t often care who is wearing whose what, and no one ever wins that fight with Ashton, so this could be entertaining. 

“Look!” Calum is raising his voice now, crossing the room to hook his finger into the tiny hole near the neckline of the tshirt and pull at it, dragging it wide, “This is the neckhole Luke made when he bit me for taking his biscuits last week. This is my current favourite shirt, Ashton.” 

Calum has a point. Luke tongues over his incisor, sensitive when he thinks back to the catch of fabric, and even Ashton looks paused by Calum’s argument, staring up at him where he’s standing, looming, hands on his hips now. 

“Take it off! It’s mine!” He’s hardly throwing a tantrum, but he sounds like he means it, nothing joking in his tone or stance, and that’s probably more rare. 

Luke hopes this isn’t going to become a thing, because if they’ve got to start stripping off every time they accidentally or totally on purpose pull on something that isn’t theirs, their exposure levels are going to skyrocket. And not in the way they want. 

But Ashton just shrugs, glances at Luke to roll his eyes, and reaches back to grab a handful of fabric and yank it over his head. 

He tosses it right into Calum’s face, but Calum only nods his thanks and half folds the thing, tucking it into the back pocket of his jeans and walking off, quiet in his victory for once. 

Ashton shifts to sit next to Luke, still shirtless, and Luke has no clue where they’re going to find him something else to wear because they don’t have wardrobe for this appearance, it’s just a small local tv thing for a station Luke can’t even remember the name of. 

Michael still hasn’t looked up from his phone, and Ashton lifts his hips to get his own from his back pocket, his bare arm brushing against Luke’s, friction making the hair there stand on end. 

Luke looks at the wall across the room, blank except for a painting of a flower or maybe a vagina, he can’t really tell. 

“So who’s wearing my underwear today, boys?” Michael asks the room, full again now when Calum walks back in without the shirt that started this whole thing, his face still oddly serious and his hands away, folded flatly stacked inside the pouch pocket of his hoodie. 

He cracks a smile for Michael, and Luke tries to follow suit. 

“I’m not wearing underwear at all, thank you,” Ashton murmurs, low so only Luke could hear, and Luke pushes his thumbs between the rips in his jeans, worries the material until the pads of his thumbs burn. 

 

____

 

A week later, they’re at a photoshoot and they do have wardrobe. 

Luke is doing his best to stand very still in the middle of a room that’s full of people and objects constantly moving and being moved around him, and his best must be good enough, because they’re dressing him first, trusting him as least likely to make a mess of himself before it’s time to get in front of the camera. 

He likes the shirt they’ve put him in, red flannel that’s only uncomfortable because it’s stiff with newness and buttoned right up to his throat, so he’s pretty excited about getting to keep this one, he knows it’ll become soft and comfy within days of being brought home to his band. 

Michael, up next, gets trussed up in a tshirt, which is about as complicated an item of clothing as anyone will ever get him into, and besides, the real battle with him is always how to style his hair until he’s happy with it. 

By the time Luke is starting to get bored, Calum and Ashton are lined up side by side, a team of five people going back and forth on what best says whatever it is that their look is supposed to say today. ‘Musically talented teenage runaways’, usually. ‘Cleaned up punks’, sometimes. ‘Kids who only care about music and one another,’ on their days off. 

Ashton gets instantly attached to the cutaway shirt that shows off his lats, which is pretty typical. It matches the bandana he already has tied threaded across his fringe, so he’s set. 

“I don’t really feel like wearing very many clothes today,” Calum says, going for apologetic, when they try to talk him into a shirt like Luke’s. 

“When do you ever?” Michael asks from in front of the mirrors, already fussing with what is supposed to be his finished hair, and Luke mentally starts a countdown to when the stylist tells him off. 

“If you wanna show more skin, maybe you should work out more, bro. Lift a weight or something.” Ashton is just trawling for a gym buddy, is all. Of all of them, he’s the only one who owns a set of free weights and insists on bringing them everywhere, though Luke has rarely seen him actually use them. Maybe he’d work out more if Calum did too. Ash is already the closest thing to muscled this band has, but he’d look good with a little more definition. They all would, probably, but laziness is the deciding factor for Luke and Calum and Michael, he’s sure, whereas Ash has something like the kind of headstrong focus it would take to get serious about something besides music, Luke suspects and sometimes fears. 

“What would you know about it?” Calum shoots back, bent over a table now and picking through a pile of sleeveless shirts, “You’ve got drummers arms, is all, you’ve never set foot in a gym in your life.” 

Ashton gasps, mock-offended, and Luke laughs at him, because Ashton is always funny, but Luke finds him especially so when he tones it down, when he gets quietly, cuttingly witty the way Calum more often is. Calum frowns at Luke over his shoulder, and Ashton grins at him, his smile softening when he catches Luke’s eye, getting small and pleased like Luke loves. 

“Yeah, yeah. Bag out the other half of your rhythm section, Cal. That’s wicked loyal, good on ya.” He throws an arm around Luke’s shoulders and Luke hugs him around the middle, consoling him after Calum’s cruel and senseless attack. 

Calum is downright scowling, now, and Luke has no idea why Michael is laughing, but he is. 

By the time they’re stood in front of the camera Michael is still laughing, and Calum and Ashton are still glaring at one another. 

The photographer directs Luke to stand between them, maybe to offset the pinching fight that’s broken out, or maybe for some value of aesthetic that Luke can’t see because he’s in the picture. 

Michael is red-faced, with tears in his eyes by the time Calum and Ashton are told to get closer, when they’re all told to squish up tight together like they’re pushed for space.

Luke wants to ask what’s so funny, but the palm of Calum’s hand is slipping up under the back of Luke’s shirt to sit high and hot on his back, and Ashton’s shoulder is holding Luke in place, Ashton bigger than him in ways that are nothing to do with height. 

Luke wants to know why Michael is laughing, he really does, but it’s too much like hard work as it is; holding still and keeping a smile on his face, breathing through the tightness that’s inflated like a lead balloon in his chest, keeping his hands all to himself. 

(Later on, Calum curls the tip of his index finger down into the tight gap between the collar of Luke’s shirt and the skin covering his Adam’s apple, tugs at it, smiling smugly right into Luke’s face when he has no choice but to come where he is pulled - forward, into Calum. For almost an hour afterward, Luke struggles to keep in mind that breathing is a thing that his body is conditioned to do, because it’s taking effort now, it’s something he has to talk himself through, then.) 

____

 

LA is only home to people who are either stunningly attractive and stylish, or completely and utterly normal. There is no in between, as far as Luke has seen. 

They’re there for the third time already this year, and Luke is no longer as starry eyed about it, finds it much easier this trip to keep his attention from straying beyond his bandmates. 

Tonight, for example, they’re eating out downtown with a few of the execs from their stateside label, and Luke doesn’t mind one bit that the seating arrangements seem to acknowledge something like an unofficial kiddies section. The adults sit at one end, talking about the facts and figures, and Ashton contributes to what they’re saying, sometimes, the only one of them who ever cares to, but Luke is happy to sit next to him and pay precisely no attention to anything beyond them and their songs. If it’s important, he’ll get an email about it, and Ashton will explain that email to him. 

“We should head out, after,” Michael is saying, and Luke knows by how he says it and the fact that his phone is still bright in his hand why he’s suggesting it. 

“Your biffles One-D are in town, aren’t they?” Calum says before Luke can, but he doesn’t mean anything by it, they’re all pretty equally close to the other bands they write and tour with; close enough to call them real friends without the relationship being a shadow of a patch of what they are to one another. 

“Some of them are,” Michael says, already texting again, missing how Ashton makes kissy faces at him across the table. 

No one has to ask which ones, or where they’re going. 

 

_ 

 

Harry’s place in LA is the closest thing to familiar that any of them have, over here, and there are two rooms they tend to pile into, the other two Zayn’s and Harry’s as a matter of permanent arrangement. 

It’s fun, to have a few drinks and stay up most of the night talking and messing around on their guitars, to try in vain, as usual, to find a genre of music that both factions are satisfied by. Harry always wants it to be more indie, Zayn always wants it to be more soulful. Ashton and Michael both want it to be loud, and Calum wants more bass, songs that have that thrum threaded through them. Luke doesn’t care which of these categories the sounds they make fall under, once it means something, once it’s something he can really get into. 

Michael and Harry stay up all night, curled up in deck chairs out on the balcony talking for hours after everyone else has gone to bed. Zayn goes first, off to call his fiance before it gets too late back home. 

Luke is stripped down to his boxers, his alarm already set to go off in a few hours time and the covers thrown back, his knee on the mattress, when Calum and Ashton come tumbling through the doorway, elbowing each other to get there first. 

“We can’t make Cal sleep alone, Lukey,” Ashton says with his mouth brushing against the back of Luke’s neck, once he’s climbed into bed to settle behind him. They’re a touchy feely band, but this is a bit much. Sharing a bed is hardly unheard of between them, but they usually at least allude to personal space while they’re still awake, only clinging to one another when they’re asleep and have no reason not to. 

Ashton curls an arm around Luke’s waist before he can reply, his open palm moving up and over Luke’s hip in a slow, heavy drag that makes Luke shiver, and so instead of saying anything, Luke turns fully onto his side, doing the same to Calum and tugging him back against his own chest. 

Ashton rumbles in something that sounds like approval behind him, and Luke settles further into his hold, as much as he dares. 

He dares more now than he ever did before, he finds, and is rewarded by Ashton brushing his mouth warm and slick against his shoulder, a gesture that might have started life as a goodnight kiss. 

Calum touches tentative fingers to Luke’s wrist and Luke tenses up, ready to lift his arm away and apologize, but Calum only smoothes his thumb down over the veins that lead across Luke’s wrist down into his palm, and leaves his own hand overlapping Luke’s, keeping him where he is. 

“Thanks, you guys,” Calum says just before the sun starts to rise, and it takes Luke a minute to remember that he’s not always here, that they don’t always fall asleep just like this. 

 

____

 

They’re on the radio when Luke realizes that his crush on most of his band is more than that; so much more than simply friendly. 

They’re on the radio, so they hardly look their best, and they are literally live on air when Luke’s awareness of Calum and Ashton hits him like a physical thing, leaves him stumbling over his words and reaching for his bottle of water like he might die if he doesn’t do something with his hands, his mouth. 

Michael’s hair looks particularly awesome today, and he’s talking animatedly about their new EP, eloquent in his enthusiasm the way he only is when something really, really matters to him. Luke loves him, Luke would do anything for him, and he feels for Michael the same way he feels about his family. Michael’s going to be in his life forever, and Luke is excited about a lifetime spent by his side. 

Calum’s hair is completely flat on side of his head, still, and he has toothpaste crusted in one of the corners of his mouth, mint white where his lips meet. He has his head on Ashton’s shoulder, and Ashton is working his hand slowly and methodically through his hair, making it even flatter than it was to begin with. Ashton’s bandana is around his wrist, today, and Luke wants to put his mouth on the skin next to it, wants Ashton’s hand in his hair instead. Too. 

Neither Calum nor Ashton are looking at Luke, and Luke finds all of a sudden that he can’t stand that. He wants to muscle in between the two of them, wants to always be between them or right next to them, if they’re together, once all three of them are there. 

Ashton and Calum are going to be in Luke’s life forever, too, but he thinks about all the time they’ve spent together so far and realizes that he’s always been looking forward to a time when they were closer, when they were _more_ together, somehow. He’s still looking forward to that, but his patience for that day is huge and glaring in its total absence, now. 

He chokes a little on his water, and feels almost smug when they both look at him instantly, Calum staring at him in concern and Ashton reaching over to thump his hand gently against Luke’s back. 

Swallowing down half the bottle, Luke drinks until he can breathe again, and then he wipes the back of his hand across his mouth, smugness turning sharp and bright - _prideful_ \- when Calum and Ashton keep watching, the look in their eyes changing from concern into something too close to dark by half. 

Luke scooches his seat closer to the huddle they make in the middle of the desk, and they accept him into their space with open arms and welcoming knee pats. 

Ashton’s foot stays hooked around Luke’s ankle as they talk about the meet and greets they’re doing later this week, and when Luke looks around at his band Michael is the only one openly watching him, looking at him with surprise and something that might be pride in his eyes. 

 

____

 

“So you’ve finally copped on, have you?” Michael asks him when they’re next alone, holed up in the studio in pairs because they don’t get anything done otherwise. 

It’s been a few days since Luke’s epiphany, and he’s mostly spent them sitting as close to anyone from his band that’s within arm’s reach as he possibly can, quietly trying not to freak out. It doesn’t scare him that he’s more than half in love with half of his band, but it terrifies him to think about how they might feel about him; what he’ll do if they find out, when they don’t feel the same in return. Why would they? They’re Calum and Ashton. He’s just Luke. 

“Yeah,” Luke says, without hesitation, because Michael is impossible to bullshit. “I get it, now.” 

Michael rolls his eyes and tosses his pen at Luke, who dodges it easily but is hurt by the gesture, nonetheless. 

“You think you know, but you have no idea,” is all Michael will say, afterward, and Luke loves him, but he also hates him pretty regularly. 

 

____

 

“Fucking grapefruits,” Ashton is saying across the room. “Fucking grapefruits and fucking grapes. What’s a man gotta do to get an orange around here? When did fruit become such a difficult part of my life?”

Ashton has strong feelings about food, so Luke leaves him to it, because he knows there’s no consoling him about this. He ruffles Luke’s hair as he passes by him to leave, presumably off in search of an orange, and Luke smiles up at him from where he’s sat on the floor at the bottom of his bed, feet folded up underneath him with his breakfast balanced on one of his knees.

He’s licking strawberry juice off his fingers and trying to remember where he left his ipod cord when the door opens again, but it’s not Ashton who comes in.

Calum closes the door behind him, for once, and wanders in to sit across from Luke, mirroring his position on the floor. He sits and looks at Luke, always quiet first thing in the morning, but never as alert looking as he is right now.

“Everything okay?” Luke asks him, heart hammering in his chest because what if Cal has figured it out, what if he’s here to tell Luke to stop having a creepy crush on him? What if they kick him out of the band because he’s the worst? He could deal with a lifetime of being in unrequited love if he still had them, if he still had the band, he thinks. But he couldn’t live without either. 

“Yeah, ‘course,” Calum says, voice still rough with sleep, and the familiarity of that sets Luke at ease, lulls him safely back into the silence that cushions them as they share what’s left of the fruit on Luke’s plate, Calum’s hand slapping Luke’s away when he goes for the last chunk of banana, but piling all the blueberries into Luke’s open palm because he knows they’re Luke’s favourite.

“Are you sure?” Luke has to ask, because Calum is never this quiet for this long, no matter the time of day, but Calum must have forgotten what they were talking about before, must think that Luke is asking him something else, because his eyes go wide and he nods and then he sits forward into the space between them and pushes the empty plate off of Luke’s knee; puts his hand there instead and leans in and up to press his mouth to Luke’s.

Calum’s mouth tastes sweet when Luke brushes his tongue into it, and he’s only answering the pace Calum sets, doing his best to keep up when Calum kisses him like he’s wanted to forever, like he’s thought about nothing but this. Calum’s hair is soft between Luke’s fingers, and Luke feels it in the palms of his hands when Calum hums into the kiss, his mouth going slack against Luke’s and they’re pressed together, now, Calum somehow sitting in Luke’s lap, his arms looped low around Luke’s waist and his thighs spread wide around Luke’s hips.

“Wow, rude,” Ashton says from the doorway, and Luke startles hard, pulling away from Calum far and fast, but Calum holds his ground, staying right where he is and frowning at Luke instead of turning to look at Ashton at all. Cal’s mouth is even more impossible to look away from when he’s just been kissed, when Luke knows that he’s the one responsible for how flushed Cal is, for how out of place his clothes are now, but Luke manages it for Ashton. 

“This, uh,” Luke clears his throat and only belatedly notices that his hands are still on Calum’s thighs, “This is …” He doesn’t want to say it isn’t what it looks like, because it is, and because he hates cliches. Ashton is still standing in the doorway, not coming into the room but not leaving either, and he doesn’t look angry, just … put out. Luke wants to tell him that no one needs to be left out, here, but he’s also all too familiar with that old saying about the having and eating of cake. 

“Cake,” he accidentally says out loud, because it’s kind of funny, it kind of applies, but it makes Ashton’s expression shut down completely, face thunderous for a second. 

He closes the door behind him, at least, and comes over to hand both Luke and Calum oranges that he’s got stuffed in his pockets, sitting down to peel the one he’s kept for himself. 

“Or Lashton,” he says, sulking, but still staying here with them. 

“Or … Cushton,” Cal says, climbing backwards out of Luke’s lap and sitting up on the end of his bed instead. 

The three of them sit and eat their oranges in silence that’s probably only tense from Luke’s point of view, because Calum and Ashton are kicking at one another and not even trying to hurt, he’s pretty sure he caught Ashton throwing Calum a thumbs up over his head. 

“So that … that happened,” he says, when they have to go their separate ways to shower and get dressed for the day ahead. He kind of wants to double check; to make sure. But he wouldn’t be opposed to an open floor discussion about this, either. 

“Sure did,” Calum grins at him, leaning in to kiss him on the cheek before he leaves, catching the corner of Luke’s mouth because he’s Calum and he’s the worst, he’s Luke’s favourite. 

“Stuff happens all the time, Hemmo, get in on it,” Ashton adds, ever the philosopher, kissing Luke’s other cheek on his way to the bathroom and grabbing Calum’s bum as he goes, because Luke’s entire band are a nightmare. 

 

____

 

 _Come over_ , Calum texts him late that night, from the hotel room across the hall, like they’re back home and living across an entire city from one another, like they didn’t just say goodnight an hour ago. 

_n_ , Luke sends back, because he’s just gotten comfy and he feels like if he turns on a movie he’s seen a hundred times already, he might actually be able to fall asleep soon. 

_Ash is here_ , Cal sends in response, and Luke rolls his eyes, his phone lighting up with another message before he can start to respond. 

_He’ll take his shirt off for us if u ask_. 

Luke kind of wants to roll his eyes again, but he also kind of wants to find out if that’s true. 

_sry. aslep_ is his final reply, because the way he feels makes the chances he wants to take seem like a bad idea, or at least like they would be if he were to take them impulsively. 

_:(_ his phone frowns at him, the message from Ashton, when he checks the next morning. 

 

____

 

Luke keeps his hood up the next day, and it’s easy to concentrate on writing songs when he can stay inside sheltered from the sun, sheltered from everything but what’s on his mind and what he wants to say about it. 

Michael leaves to get them lunch, Luke surprised to find that he was hungry, when he climbed out of his own head for long enough to check. 

A Subway bag is waved in his face, and Luke is about to make grabby hands first, thank Michael later, when he looks at the hand holding out his lunch and follows it up, up, into Ashton’s face. 

“You’re not Michael,” Luke says, dumb the way he always gets when he focuses too long and too hard on what he’s feeling, forgets how to conduct normal conversations without confusion and difficulty and far too much blunt honesty. 

Ashton narrows his eyes at him. 

“Have you been working on your powers of perception again, Hemmings? If you get any better at this, the X Men will come to take you away from us.” 

“Fuck off,” Luke tells Ashton, because he doesn’t swear often, but when he does it’s at Ashton. 

They eat lunch together, the silence companionable and pretty normal all things considered, because feelings aside they’re teenage boys and food comes before dudes. And everything else, really. 

“Where’d Mikey go? I was supposed to be writing with him all day,” Luke says as he balls up the paper off his sandwich and throws it in the vague direction of the trash can in the corner. 

“I had him killed so we could be together forever,” Ashton tells him, mouth still full, and Luke almost can’t believe that this is what he’s into. Almost. 

“We’re going to be a disaster writing together,” Luke says to avoid that line of thought, to at all costs prevent it from becoming a point of discussion. 

“I think that’s what Cal and Mikey were counting on, mate,” Ashton says, cleaned up and ready to get down to work. 

 

\- 

 

They write half a song, and it is a disaster. But it’s the good kind; the cathartic, angry, confused kind. It might not make it onto an album, but it sounds like something Luke needed to say, and it sounds better than he could ever have made it alone when Ashton finishes his thoughts, cleans up his sentences, says what Luke means to say in ways that sound right to both of them. 

They write half a song, and Luke is so proud of it, feels so good about what they made together that he can’t think of a single reason to make himself say no when Ashton crawls across the lounge towards him and encourages him onto his back, gets Luke spread out underneath him across the cushions. 

“You are fantastic, Luke Hemmings,” Ashton tells him, and it’s nothing he hasn’t said before, but it’s different to hear him say it when he his hands down the back of Luke’s jeans, when Luke only has to tilt his head back and lift his chin ever so slightly to bring their mouths back together. 

“So are you. You are, too,” is as eloquent as Luke can manage, because he can’t think of a better way to say ‘i’m not but you are,’ than telling Ashton he’s fantastic twice. 

“No, not like you are, Lukey. You don’t even see it, and I think that makes it worse,” Luke has no idea what Ashton’s saying, but he’s saying it with his nose pressed into the dip between Luke’s collarbones, and Luke wants to keep him this close forever. 

Ashton lifts up until he’s balancing his weight on the palms of his hands, dug into the lounge on either side of Luke’s shoulders. His hips are still pressed down into Luke’s, a warm, heavy, welcomed weight, but he’s still entirely too far away, gazing down at Luke from up above him, looking down at Luke’s mouth instead of kissing it like he should be. 

“Me and Cal used to fight about it, Lukey. We’d argue over who you liked better, who could treat you better; who _deserved_ you. Neither of us do,” Ashton decides, dipping back down to rub his nose against Luke’s, an eskimo kiss that makes Luke cross-eyed, makes him dig his fingers into the hold he has on Ashton’s waist, “But we both want you, anyway. You want us too, don’t you? It’s okay if you don’t,” he says, looking uncertain for the first time, his eyes leaving Luke’s for a second, looking down at how they’re lying together before he looks back up, locking their gazes again and lifting one hand to Luke’s face, brushing his thumb up over Luke’s cheekbone, the pad of it rough but so gentle it makes Luke’s breath lock up in his chest. “But you do, don’t you?” 

He waits for an answer, and that kills Luke. He can’t bear to think that Ashton doesn’t know already, that it’s not totally clear to him and Calum that Luke’s love for them spills over every single kind of boundary that could possibly contain it, flows out into everything they do, every word he says to them. 

“We just wrote a song that’s about how much I want to get into your pants, Ash. Yours and Cal’s. The hook is about how I want both of you in mine. Were you here for what we just did?” 

Ashton grins. 

“I just wanted to be sure, bro. You’re a complicated kind of guy, Luke Hemmings. You’ve always been the mysterious one.” 

“How’s this for complicated?” Luke asks him, shoving at his shoulder and wriggling until he gets with the program, sits up and lets Luke swing a leg across his lap, settle in with his hands on Ashton’s shoulders. 

“This is the kind of complication I could get used to,” Ashton says, his hand in Luke’s hair already tipping his head down for another kiss. 

 

____

 

Between the touring and the writing and the appearances and the studio time and everything else that fills every minute of their every day, they really don’t get a lot of time to sit down and define their relationships. 

Luke doesn’t know if he can call anyone in this band his boyfriend, but he knows that he’d better get used to being pulled into bathrooms and janitor’s closets and storage spaces by Ashton or Calum or both. He knows that he walked in on the two of them making out last night, and he knows that if he hadn’t been coming to fetch them, they’d have invited him into their midst with open arms and straying hands. He knows that the quickest way to shut Calum up is to suck a kiss around his nipple; to get teeth in on the action if he’s being really irritating. He knows what it feels like to wake up with Ashton next to him, the sticky head of his cock pressed up into the groove of Luke’s hip first thing in the morning. 

He knows, above all else, that he needs more time or more opportunity to explore every inch of the changes that are taking place here. More time and much, _much_ less clothes. 

 

\- 

 

Predictably, Luke gets pretty desperate pretty quickly. 

Michael and Ashton are deep into some epic kind of nerf gun warfare, because they’ve just come off stage and they’re all hyped still, lit up and hyper with the kind of energy that’s like nothing else. 

Ashton chases Michael off down a hallway, both of them running faster than he’s ever seen them move before, and Luke gets it because he feels like he could lift a truck right now, pure adrenaline hot and heady in his veins. 

Adrenaline that quickly slows down and burns up into something else entirely when Calum shakes his head at their antics and turns way to head for a shower, tugging his shirt up and off and giving Luke an intentionally uninterrupted view of the line of his back as he goes. 

He lifts a hand to scrub it through his hair as he walks, and the stretch of his arm makes Luke’s mind up for him. 

“Wha - Luke? Luke what’re you - oh,” Calum says, understandably surprised when Luke slips into the shower room after him, locking the door behind them and leaning back against it, towing Calum back toward him by the wrist. 

“You’re supposed to be the well behaved one of the band, of us,” Calum says, but he’s grinning at Luke the way he only ever does when Luke has surprised him in the way he likes best - by misbehaving; by proving to Calum that he can be just as difficult or devious as him, when he needs to be. Calum backs Luke further into the door, caging him in against it with the spread of his body, and this is exactly the kind of thing Calum does with ease; does well. 

“You’re supposed to keep us in hand, Hemmings,” Calum says, gasping when Luke does as he’s told and starts in on Calum’s belt, the fastenings of his jeans. “That’s not at all what I meant, but no worries, do whatever feels good, Luke, don’t let me stop you.” 

“You feel good,” Luke tells Calum when he has his jeans pushed down around his thighs and his hand around Calum’s dick, palm barely slick enough with just his spit. 

“Jesus, Luke,” is all Calum can manage, tipping forward to drop his forehead to Luke’s shoulder, hips shifting forward into Luke’s grip on him, rocking back and forth on the balls of his feet like staying still could kill him. 

Luke knows the feeling. 

“This is driving me mad, Cal,” he admits, nose turned into the skin behind Calum’s ear, his hands desperate on Calum’s cock, cupping his balls. He wants to drop to his knees, wants more than anything to get his mouth around Calum’s dick, but this could be too much as it is, this is already more than he ever thought he’d get to have. Calum’s cock throbs in his hand, it’s thick and hot and jerking for Luke’s touch, and “I want to touch you all the time. I - you’re so fucking hot; your back and your ridiculous hair and the way the veins in your neck stand out when you sing. I want you so much it’s stupid,” he says, relieved to, because he doesn’t know how much he’s allowed to say or how serious about this Calum and Ashton are. Luke doesn’t mind if they’re not as into this as his, once they’re into him and don’t mind that it’s worse for him; so much fucking more. 

Calum gasps like Luke has winded him, but before Luke can check that he’s okay Calum has his own jeans completely down and off, is kicking them away and going back for Luke’s. 

“Get in the shower, you idiot,” Calum tells him, ripping half the buttons off the front of his shirt and pushing it off his shoulders. Luke frowns but does as he’s told, because as he hopes he has made clear by now: he’ll take whatever he can get, even if that is this: Calum making fun of him, thinking Luke is stupid for liking him so much. 

“I _love_ you,” Calum says when he’s got them both naked and into the shower stall, his lovely back taking the brunt of the spray so he can hold Luke still by the shoulders and make him listen. “I’m in love with you, Luke Hemmings,” he repeats, for whose sake Luke doesn’t know, because Luke for one will never forget a millisecond of how it sounded the first time. “Ashton, too, but that was kind of an accident, you know what he’s like.” 

Before Luke can say anything Calum is reaching for him with both hands, leaning up to kiss him and getting his hand around both of them, his fingers barely long enough to fit until Luke reaches down to help him out and then the two of them are groaning into the kiss, blinking away the water that catches on their eyelashes and blindly moving against each other, their bodies so close together it’s hard to tell them apart, Luke not caring to try. He gets to watch his come drip back down the hot line of Calum’s dick, with Calum’s hair stuck to his cheek, and Calum’s breathless laugh following his insistence on cleaning the two of them up afterward, methodically soaping Calum down and making him turn around so Luke can shampoo his hair, rinsing carefully to keep it out of his eyes. 

“I’m in love with you too,” Luke remembers to tell Calum, saying it out loud an afterthought at this point, when they’re towelling off, standing together naked like they so often are, but the experience completely different this time. “I think I always have been?” 

“Ugh, shut it,” Calum says, shaking his head but looking at Luke like he just offered him his last digestive biscuit, “You’re a menace to society. You make all other humans look like ugly, useless lugs in comparison.” 

It’s sweet, in the only way Calum knows how to be. 

 

_ 

 

(“You’re both gross and not even slightly subtle,” Michael tells him when they emerge, but he’s smiling like he’s pleasantly surprised. 

“You’re both gross and not even slightly subtle and I feel left out so come and give me cuddles now, please,” Ashton says, apparently drained after his hijinx with Michael because he doesn’t even try to feel them up when they slump down onto the lounge on either side of them, just drops his head onto Calum’s shoulder and shifts to let Luke wind an arm around his waist. 

“Love you guys,” he tells them before he heads to bed that night, kissing them both with quick little pecks that are romantic in a soft, muted way - a way Luke finds he really, really likes. “Like … the capital ‘L’ way,” he is sure to clarify, and Luke’s heart thumps so hard in his chest it sounds like a song, feels like standing on a different kind of stage.)

 

____

 

They’re still not technically old enough to get into bars in every country they go to, not all of them, at least, but that never really seems to be something that affects what has become another part of their job, these days. 

Tonight they’re in the VIP section of a club Luke has definitely been in before but still can’t remember the name of, and most of the time these nights are fun excuses to be silly together, to hang out in new and different spaces; meet new people and see new sights, continue in their quest to explore the whole world. 

But Luke isn’t having fun tonight, and neither is Calum. It goes without saying that Ashton isn’t, because he wore his glasses out and has his hoodie strings tied around this throat; a sure sign that he wants to be at home in bed, alone or alone with them at the very least. He’s been grumbling all day, whining about being tired and needing looking after, cornering Calum and Luke for hugs and kisses like he doesn’t care if they get caught. Luke isn’t too worried because he knows the feeling. He wants their time off to be theirs sometimes, too. 

But instead, he’s having to stand through the daughter of one of their corporate sponsors hitting on him poorly and obviously, her brother hitting on Calum in what looks to be at least a superior attempt. 

“Yeah, that - that song wasn’t really written about anyone in particular, you know? We all write together so it’s kind of … bits and pieces made up into a different story, yeah?” 

“Sure, sure,” she’s saying, touching his arm and asking if he wants another drink even though he’s said no the last five times she asked. She keeps quizzing him about their touring schedule, and Luke can hear her brother asking Calum if he wants to go to an after party. He can feel a headache coming on. 

He just wants to be back in their hotel room in what will serve as his own bed, tonight, wrapped up in Calum or Ashton; preferably both, as he’s come to grow accustomed to. 

Michael frowns sympathetically at him from across the table they’re sitting around, and Luke tries to turn his own frown upside down, because they’ve still got a job to do, and things like this are unfortunately a part of that. 

He’s still trying to muster the energy to continue the conversation he’s trapped in when Ashton stands up and announces to the table; 

“Sorry to make a fuss, lads, but I’m feeling really very poorly. If you’ll excuse me, thanks for tonight, but I’d better -”

“We’re coming with you!” Calum, Luke, and Michael all say in unison, and Luke hopes their clear codependence as a band covers the fact that whether Ashton is serious about being sick or not, they’re all dying to get out of here. 

They make their excuses, they say their goodbyes, and they bail the way they came - together. 

“Sorry about that,” Ashton says, seeming to address it to Michael in particular, once they’re in the van and headed back to the hotel, “I know that was important, but -” 

“Shut up,” Michael says, reaching over the seat to cuff the back of Ashton’s head, “We all hated that, you just saved us from certain misery, maybe death.” 

Ashton knows better than any of them the importance of their appearances, who and what they do as a band, so Luke trusts that he wouldn’t do anything to jeopardize their careers, he knows that Ashton looks out for them as a band more than he looks out for himself as a person, as a part of it all. If Ashton needed to get out of there, they all did. 

“You feeling better?” Luke asks him, following him to his room literally on his heels, bumping up against his back every few steps and hooking his chin over Ashton’s shoulder as he opens the door to his room. 

“I feel like shit,” Ashton tells him, giving him pause, because he’d been sure Ash was faking. 

“Should I get someone? Do you need me to call -” 

Luke’s concern is short-lived, because what Ashton needs is _him_ , apparently. He throws his jacket off, his hoodie going with it, and then he hauls Luke up against him, his hands instantly disappearing up inside Luke’s tshirt and his face buried in between Luke’s neck and shoulder. 

It feels like he’s trying to climb inside Luke; fuse them into one person, maybe. 

“Call Calum. Get Calum over here,” Ashton says against Luke’s skin, his shoulders trembling under Luke’s palm when he rubs his hands up over them, aiming for soothing. 

“Okay, okay, I’ll get him, he’ll come,” Luke feels the need to reassure Ashton, because of course Calum will come if they call, but hearing Luke say so makes Ashton relax in his arms, makes him slump further into him in something like relief. 

It isn’t exactly easy, texting Calum one-handed with Ashton mouthing at his throat, tugging at the waistband of Luke’s jeans like clothes are a concept that’s totally beyond him, but Luke manages it, shooting off a vague _Ash’s room. Come here_. 

While they wait, it seems like the natural thing to do to strip down and climb into bed in their boxers. That’s what they always do when they get in, it’s nothing but routine at this point and Luke is attached to that already, but there’s something different about tonight; something about the way Ashton touches him that makes him think they’re not going to fall asleep in their usual tangle once Calum clambers in, limbs all over them and the bed like he’s got extra, and kisses them goodnight. 

The sheets are barely warm when the door clicks open and Calum slips in, totally subtle and surreptitious about the whole thing until he takes a running leap at the bed and starfishes right in the middle of it, on top of Ashton and Luke and not caring in the slightest. 

“Hey mates. What’s up? Am I cordially invited to these cuddles or is this solo Lashton time or what?” 

“Pfft. There’s no such thing,” Luke grumbles, going for put out but probably falling short because he’s not disappointed in the slightest; he can’t kiss Ashton without thinking about Calum, too, doesn’t ever want to find out what it’s like to get off with one of them without cataloguing every little bit of it to share with the other, after. 

“Oh,” Calum says, smiling like this is news to him, like he’s pleased by it, “Cool.” 

“No,” Ashton says from mostly under the covers, burrowed down low like he’s hiding, “It’s not cool. Nothing’s cool. Everything sucks.” 

Calum and Luke exchange a look, and it’s half a look of comprehension, half hedged bets. Ashton is pretty quick to get testy, quickest of them all to lose his temper, but his reactions are never really about whatever stupid, childish thing they’re arguing over at the time. Ashton’s hidden depths are one of Luke’s favourite things about him. 

“Everything alright, Ash?” Calum asks, in a way that makes it clear that an answer is required, not simply requested. 

“Don’t like sharing,” Ashton grumbles through what sounds like a mouthful of duvet, “Don’t like seeing other people look at you like they think you two are up for grabs.” 

“Ah,” Calum says, voicing exactly what Luke is thinking. That makes an awful lot of sense. 

“But we’re not. Up for grabs, I mean,” Luke tells him, turning over and climbing to his knees to wrestle the covers down off of Ashton’s face, forcing him to face the music. “We’re with you. And each other. You two are the only ones getting to grab me.” 

“And me,” Calum pipes up from the end of the bed, struggling out of his clothes with haste now, because this has become a mission of reassurance, and those are the ones they respond to quickest and best. As a band and as human beings, they have important priorities. 

Ashton stops fighting Luke’s grip of the duvet and stares up at him instead, gone totally still and looking perfectly silly with his hair all over the place, his face still scrunched up like he’d been thinking about pouting some more. 

“Yeah?” he asks, clearly struggling with the concept, still, and Luke barely resists the temptation to roll his eyes as he brushes the hair out of Ash’s, instead. 

“Duuuuuh,” Calum tells him, kicking the covers all the way down and off the bed as he climbs up to replace them over Ashton, holding a hand out for Luke as he goes. 

 

____

 

“You can fuck me, if you want,” Luke tells Ashton once between Calum and him, they’ve made sure that Ashton knows without a doubt that he’s their favourite, that that’s not going to change. It wouldn’t hurt to drive that point home a little harder, Luke thinks, and his hips shift of their own accord when he thinks about what it might feel like, Ashton filling him right up with Calum watching. 

“I do want, and I will, thank you,” Ashton manages to be conversational about it, somehow, when Luke is still a little breathless just thinking about it, “But if you don’t mind, I thought we might try it the other way around, tonight?” 

It’s not that Luke hasn’t thought about it, because obviously. It’s not that Luke doesn’t want to, because come on. But he really hadn’t thought this would be the way this went, not right off the bat at least. 

“You sure?” he asks, because he doesn’t want Ash making any hasty decisions, driven to whatever kind of madness jealousy stirs up in him. 

“Really, really sure,” Ashton assures him, snapping the waistband of Luke’s boxers like he has figured out clothes, and is now determined to overcome them all, item by item. 

“Cal?” Luke asks, addressing the room at large, but mostly trying to get Calum’s attention. 

“I have definitely got time for that,” Calum lifts his head from sucking soft bruises on Ashton’s thighs to say, helpfully using his free hand to point out how his other hand is disappearing up inside the leg of Ashton’s boxers, “I’m kind of way ahead of you?” To his credit, he almost manages to sound bashful about it. The toothy kiss he presses to Luke’s mouth when Luke leans down for it soundly ruins the effort, unfortunately. 

“Right,” Luke says, totally out of his depth. 

 

____

 

Luke mostly counts backwards from a hundred and runs through his chord progressions for every song on their setlist, while Calum opens Ashton up around his fingers. It’s a sight to behold, and it’s one Luke is going to drink in for sure the next time he gets to see it, but this is all a little overwhelming the first time, his very first time, and Cal and Ash have the good grace to give him some breathing room on that. 

“You’re going to be so good,” Calum tells him, whispering it in his ear when he’s still on his knees between Ashton’s thighs, when Luke has to curl his own fingers tight and unforgiving around his cock to keep from coming already. 

“Don’t be nervous, Lukey, you’re already perfect, I’m going to love this,” Ashton says against Luke’s shoulder, his mouth hot against Luke’s skin. 

Putting the condom on is awful. It’s awful because Calum tears it open with his teeth, so careful not to rip it, and then he passes it off to Luke with a smile on his face, with a kiss that lands sweet and square across Luke’s knuckles. And then Luke has to roll it on himself, has to slick his cock up in the knowledge that he’s doing all of this specifically and only because he’s about to put his dick in Ashton. 

“Easy, ay?” Ashton says, like he’s nervous too, and Luke will never be able to breathe again. 

Every single cell of him, lungs included, stay still and tight as he touches the head of his cock to Ashton’s hole; everything slick and warm already, and only the bracing touch of Ashton’s knees up around his waist and Calum’s hands low on Luke’s hips keep him together when he pushes _inside_. 

“See? Nothing to it,” Ashton tries to reassure him, and Luke is glad that Calum laughs behind him, his chin propped up over Luke’s shoulder now, because Luke hasn’t got it in him to, hasn’t got the breath or presence of mind to, because that’s the most ridiculous thing he’s ever heard. 

There’s everything to it. 

He’s looking down at the slow slide of his dick into Ashton’s ass, and it’s only when he bottoms out, as deep in him as he can go, that his lungs fill again, air whooshing into his chest and making his eyes burn bright. 

“Fuck,” he says, and Ashton waggles his eyebrows up at him, tries to grin but fails because Luke pulls out again on instinct and Ashton’s eyes slip closed instead, his forehead creasing up and his mouth falling open. 

“Fuck indeed. Fuck _me_.” 

“I already am. I am,” Luke tells him, nonsensical, but it brings Ashton’s smile home, anyway. 

“I’m next,” Calum says over Luke’s shoulder, and Luke doesn’t know if he means he’s next to fuck Ashton, next to get fucked by Luke, or next in some other general sort of way, but it doesn’t matter because Luke will agree to any and all of that. He’ll give either of them whatever they want, anything they ask him for. 

“You feel - this is -” 

“Yeah,” Ashton says, his hands scrambling to get a hold of the headboard above him but finding only pillows instead, his fingers biting into them, “This is. This is what I wanted. I’m all better now, Lukey,” and it’s not cheesy like it should be, it’s exactly as heartfelt as it was intended to be, sweet and hot. 

It’s not long before Luke’s hips are moving faster than he gave them permission to, fast enough to get Ashton asking for more, and all it takes is Calum’s natural curiosity getting the better of all of them, his index finger curling down low around Luke’s cock and nudging shallowly into Ashton alongside it, before Ashton’s hips are coming up off the bed and his ass is somehow tighter around Luke’s cock, his own shooting thick streams of come up across his belly, dripping into the lines of his abs. 

“Fuck,” Calum says, quiet and reverent about it, and Luke would agree if he weren’t still totally dazed, frozen in place by what he’s seeing and feeling. 

“C’mon, Lukey, give Ash a break and come on me, instead,” Cal coaxes, his mouth up under Luke’s ear and his hands tracing teasing little figure eights low between Luke’s hips. 

Luke doesn’t know how to tell Calum that he doesn’t need to flirt with Luke to get him to do what he wants, and he doesn’t ever want Calum to stop flirting with him when it makes his heart hammer in his chest, makes his stomach get tight and fall and fall and fall. 

It’s the easiest thing in the world to turn around to Calum and push him over, backwards into the sheets. 

It feels like coming home, leaning down over him and stripping the condom away, stroking himself off looking at Calum’s mouth and the line of his throat until he comes across the flushed skin of Calum’s thighs, criss-crossed ropes across Calum’s cock. 

He doesn’t think twice about wrapping his own mess and Calum’s dick up in his hand, getting Calum’s legs apart until he can kneel up between them instead and bend down to kiss him through his orgasm, feel it in his tongue when Calum shakes apart underneath him. 

“See? You’re a natural,” Ashton tells him, eyes still closed, when Luke stretches and rearranges limbs and cajoles his bandmates and maybe boyfriends until they’re all spooned up together, filthy still, but touching everywhere. 

“Only because it’s you two,” Luke decides. “I’m not good at this, I’m good at you.” 

“And you were worried other people were gonna get to grab up on your boys,” Calum scoffs, pinching Ashton’s nipple, judging by the volume of his squawk. 

“Not on my watch,” Ash promises, hiding his face in the space between Luke’s shoulder and the sheets, moving back into Calum’s body and pulling Luke right along with him. 

 

____

 

“All good?” Michael asks the three of them over breakfast the next morning, and trust him to pick up on something that even Luke didn’t really get until Ashton spelled it out for them. “Am I once more the only emo in the band? Because I thought we might go for the alter-ego set tonight, do a one night only 500 Years of Winter performance. What do you reckon?” 

Ashton ducks his head, embarrassed for once in his life, but Luke pulls up his hood for him and lets him snuggle into his side, both of them laughing as Calum launches what’s left of his dry cheerios right at Michael, his aim deadly when he’s serious. 

 

____

 

“We’re 5 Seconds of Summer and we’re so emo that Michael Clifford asked us to join him on the darkside, this morning,” Luke announces to the crowd that night, straight faced throughout although Calum is hanging off his shoulder giggling like mad and he can tell without turning to look that Ash’s drum roll is particularly whimsical, for him. 

“Unfortunately, we’re all hyped on getting to do what we love, so join in on this one, and if you’re happy and you know it … you know what to do.” 

Ash counts them in, and Michael and Calum face off on opposite sides of the stage after the second chorus, splitting the audience in two and waging an impromptu clap off that goes on for a full sixty seconds too long. 

Luke claps along with both halves of the audience, because he’s happy enough to go on and on, and he’s never really felt like picking sides if he could find a way not to. 

 

____  
____  
____

**Author's Note:**

> This is not even a little bit true and I'm not profiting from it in any way, in fact it's ruining my life.


End file.
